So the Top Gear Awards is officially back on our 20th Anniversary, and we’ve chosen no less than the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N as the 2024 Car of the Year. Naturally, we got questions on how exactly this was decided.
Well, it’s pretty simple. As with previous years, we voted. Us full-time staffers and some of our contributors had a say in this. There were a total of nine people who voted, and each of us had five picks. First-place votes equate to 10 points, second place to eight points, third to six points, fourth to four points, and fifth to five points.
At the end of the voting, it was somewhat of a big victory for the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. For a better look, we’ve shared all of our final picks below.
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Top Gear Philippines 2024 Car of the Year voting results:
Carlo Chungunco
- First place – Toyota Land Cruiser Prado
- Second place – Ford Bronco
- Third place – Ford Mustang GT
- Fourth place – Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
- Fifth place – Hyundai Elantra N
Dinzo Tabamo
- First place – Toyota Land Cruiser Prado
- Second place – Hyundai Santa Fe
- Third place –Mitsubishi XForce
- Fourth place –Ford Bronco
- Fifth place – GAC Emkoo Hybrid
Sheng Banzon
- First place – Toyota Land Cruiser Prado
- Second place – Honda CR-V
- Third place – Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
- Fourth place – Mitsubishi XForce
- Fifth place – Nissan Z
Leandre Grecia
- First place – Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
- Second place – Honda CR-V
- Third place – Ford Bronco
- Fourth place –BYD Sealion
- Fifth place – Mitsubishi XForce
Anton Andres
- First place – Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
- Second place – Honda CR-V
- Third place – BMW i5
- Fourth place – Ford Mustang GT
- Fifth place – Ford Bronco
Charles Banaag
- First place – Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
- Second place – Ford Mustang GT
- Third place – Honda CR-V
- Fourth place – Toyota Land Cruiser Prado
- Fifth place – BYD Sealion
Billy Caluag
- First place – Toyota Yaris Cross
- Second place – Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
- Third place – Toyota Land Cruiser Prado
- Fourth place – BYD Sealion
- Fifth place – Toyota Corolla Cross
Niky Tamayo
- First place – Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
- Second place – BYD Sealion
- Third place – MG MG 4
- Fourth place – Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid
- Fifth place – Ferrari Roma Spyder
Andrew Guerrero
- First place – Toyota Yaris Cross
- Second place – Kia Sonet
- Third place – Mitsubishi XForce
- Fourth place – Hyundai Santa Fe
- Fifth place – Toyota Corolla Cross
In case, for some weird, unknown reason, you still aren’t convinced that the Ioniq 5 N deserves this prestigious award, then hear out what other people have to say about it. I’ve asked a few of my colleagues who’ve tried out Hyundai’s groundbreaking EV about their thoughts.
“The Ioniq 5 N driving experience is as wondrous as it is enigmatic. For an EV that is kind to the environment, it drives and acts as close as a facsimile as it can be to the best gas-powered performance cars,” said Top Gear Philippines president and CEO Carlo Chungunco. “‘Throttle-blipping,’ ‘gears,’ and a ‘rev-limiter’ mean that this is as close as you can get to a sports car experience without using a drop of petrol. We had smiles on our faces from the moment the simulated engine sounds roared to life. Frankly, if all EVs were this fun, they would’ve been everywhere by now.”
“Simply put, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is a high-performance EV with the soul of a fuel-fed car. It makes all the right noises, literally and figuratively, and its capabilities on and off the racetrack are hard to beat,” said features editor Anton Andres. “The Ioniq 5 N offers beastly performance without being intimidating, but it’s an EV that’s far from boring.”
“Electrification of cars is inevitable but Hyundai made a huge success in making this future fun for enthusiasts,” shared content producer Charles Banaag. “While other performance EVs are designed mainly for neck-braking acceleration, the Ioniq 5 N is the first in its class that truly focuses on giving proper driver feedback. Man, do I still long for more time behind the wheel of this crazy monster.”
We’ll end this with an excerpt from Niky Tamayo’s feature article on the Ioniq 5 N: “Do Filipinos need another meme machine sitting in gas station forecourts on Sunday mornings or sliding into ditches on Saturday evening due to juvenile owner antics? Maybe not. But as an icon of EV desirability, the Ioniq 5 N is a spectacular thing. At just P4.25 million, it costs a third as much as a Nissan GT-R and a tenth as much as an Urus, while offering similar performance. And perhaps, at that price, it will still be out of the reach of the hopelessly inept. But for those who can live with driving the ultimate contradiction, this is a fascinating machine that can truly do it all. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Do I love it anyway? Absolutely.”
